Industrial revitalisation is the top priority of rural revitalisation, as well as the starting point for practical work. Without industry, rural areas struggle to attract people, let alone retain talent; the avenues for farmers to increase their income remain narrow, and cultural activities are difficult to initiate. In promoting industrial revitalisation, all regions must thoroughly contemplate the meaning of ‘local specialties’… ensuring that the added value and benefits of agricultural products remain in the countryside and with the farmers.
— Xi Jinping, *Accelerating the Construction of a Strong Agricultural Country and Promoting the Modernisation of Agriculture and Rural Areas*, *Qiushi*, March 2023
Banning farmers from selling dried chillies, in the name of food safety
Banning farmers from building hearths, in the name of ‘New Rural Areas’
Banning farmers from raising poultry, in the name of ‘Civilised Villages’
Banning farmers from raising silkworms, in the name of high-tech drone spraying
And so it goes
Having forgotten that China is built upon the foundation of smallholder farmers
They imagine they are destined only for the stars and the vast ocean
— A post-85s youth who returned to the countryside, commenting on the *Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products Market Sales (Revised Draft for Comment)*
I. Consumers: Perplexing New Regulations
On Monday, an article by Foodthink regarding a new regulation that could ban farmers from producing and selling dried goods sparked widespread discussion. In the *Measures for the Supervision and Administration of Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products Market Sales (Revised Draft for Comment)*, the State Administration for Market Regulation removed ‘drying’ from the definition of ‘edible agricultural products’. This likely means that farmers who produce and sell their own dried vegetables, fruits, or fish in the future may face penalties for illegal activity.
A regulation originally formulated to guarantee food safety has instead left the very consumers most concerned about food safety feeling bewildered.
Reader Wanica asked: “Does this mean we’re no longer allowed to hang dates from trees to dry?”Reader Lihua wondered: “Is this a law to stimulate consumption? To buy jujubes, you’d have to fly to Xinjiang for fresh ones; for walnuts, travel thousands of miles to Yunnan to knock them off the tree; for goji berries, make a special trip to Gansu. Or perhaps buy a house with a big courtyard and spend your spare time drying fresh produce… now that would certainly be a massive boost to consumption!”Reader Qiuqiu says: It is perfectly normal for farmers to sell their own sun-dried produce or slice fresh fruit to sell at the market. We shouldn’t apply the logic of food safety regulations to everything; the focus should instead be on factory-processed foods where problems are most likely to arise—things like grains, oil, powdered milk, and latiao spicy strips… Back in 2019, I bought some home-grown dried goji berries from a man in Qinghai, and to this day, my mum still asks if she can buy more because the quality was so superb. Consumers are perceptive; we have our own taste experiences with dried and fresh produce, and we can be incredibly discerning. The thought of the ladies selling mangoes outside school gates, calling out, ‘Love, fancy some mango?’, having to invest in machinery and a set of standards just to slice fruit is simply ridiculous. Ordinary working people can’t afford that; they have no money—they are just small-scale farmers and vendors. This is madness.
● Apricot jam, almonds, and dried apricots—do you know which of these farmers are allowed to process themselves and sell legally? Photo: A Yue
II. Farmers: How did I end up breaking the law?
For many farmers, however, the concerns are more immediate: Do the products I produce count as ‘dried goods’? Will I still be able to sell them in future?
Dried vegetables, fruit, fish, or meat—which of these require a food production licence?
To be more specific: do Sichuan peppercorns and star anise count as dried goods? What about dried beans?
If dried chillies can no longer be sold, but ‘pulverising’ remains within the definition of edible agricultural products, is selling chilli powder still legal?
While the Market Supervision authorities have yet to provide further clarification, the current wording of policies and regulations suggests that if ‘dried products’ are removed from the ‘edible agricultural products’ category, any processed agricultural product involving drying could be affected.
Furthermore, dried products vary wildly; the food safety risks associated with dried meat are entirely different from those of dried fruit and vegetables. Can enforcement avoid a ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach in practice?
In truth, these issues have plagued farmers for years. Following the publication of Monday’s article, many fellow farmers shared their own observations and frustrations.
A young returnee from the home of Hangbai chrysanthemum: I’ve never understood why you need food processing plant certification just to sell Hangbai chrysanthemum, which is simply dried.A farmer from Beijing: Various grains and mushrooms are also dried goods. This regulation is a textbook example of bureaucracy—it’s as if they’re trying to regulate the sun itself.A public interest advocate for pastoral regions: In Inner Mongolia, air-dried meat made by herders has long been banned from direct sale on the market.A young rural development worker from the Central Plains: I first heard that wild dried mushrooms required certification in 2018, and I was baffled. Why should wild mushrooms, simply dried in the sun, require food processing plant certification to be sold? For things like dried mushrooms, chillies, or wood ear fungus, the principle of sun-drying or oven-drying is the same—you’re just removing the moisture. It’s not complicated, and farmers can easily do it themselves. But now, to sell them legally, farmers must dry the produce and then pay a certified plant to package or dry it further, just so they can use the plant’s certification for the sale.
A young returnee from Sichuan: I just find the whole thing absurd. Farmers aren’t even allowed to perform simple drying; it *must* be done by a factory, under the guise of ‘improving quality and safety’. Farmers already have a hard enough time, yet their options are being squeezed further and further. It’s as if they’re being forced to grow only the most basic grains and vegetables, stripped of the right to perform even the simplest primary processing.In fact, the ‘Catalogue of Food Production Licence Classifications’ published by the State Administration for Market Regulation provides a detailed list for dried vegetables, fruits, edible fungi, and aquatic products. Once ‘drying’ was excluded from the permitted processing methods for edible agricultural products, any dried vegetables, fruits, fungi, aquatic products, or meats required a production licence to enter the market. This effectively excludes small-scale farmers who carry out simple processing at home.
● The specific classifications for vegetable and fruit products in the ‘Catalogue of Food Production Licence Classifications’. As can be seen, in addition to dried products, various pickled items, tinned goods, and jams also require a production licence.
III. Small-scale processing is the foundation of industry revitalisation
In March this year, General Secretary Xi Jinping published an article in *Qiushi* magazine, once again emphasising the relationship between farmers and rural revitalisation, particularly regarding “local specialities”:
Industry revitalisation is the top priority of rural revitalisation and the practical point of entry. Without industry, it is difficult for villages to attract people, let alone retain talent; farmers’ paths to increasing their income cannot be widened, and cultural activities are hard to initiate. In promoting industry revitalisation, various regions must thoroughly contemplate the term ‘local specialities’… ensure that the value-added profits from agricultural products remain in the countryside and go to the farmers.
In fact, for thousands of years, farmers have increased their income, extended the shelf life of ingredients, and hedged against the risks of market volatility by creating their own processed goods. The “local specialities” found across the country are a testament to the wisdom and experience of these farmers. Readers of Foodthink have also noted this, leaving comments to share their observations.
Reader Meihong: Removing “drying” is completely unreasonable. Local farmers have no market for fresh produce nearby; drying allows it to be transported further and sold at a higher price.Reader Rabbit is Cute: Fresh produce sometimes fails to fetch a good price due to market fluctuations. To avoid selling at a loss, many farmers choose to process fresh vegetables into dried goods for sale. On one hand, this opens new markets; on the other, it provides a source of income. If selling is banned through a one-size-fits-all approach, it would be a fatal blow to production, especially for small-scale farmers. In terms of market response, consumers actually prefer products made by the farmers themselves. From my observation, because home production is relatively small-scale, it is harder to commit fraud, meaning quality and safety are actually better guaranteed. Moreover, every region has its own dietary habits; what to buy and eat is a matter of convention that everyone understands. It is the small-scale factories with a certain degree of production volume that require more regulation.
A young person who returned to their village in Yunnan: In our local farmers’ markets, there used to be areas where small vendors were allowed to sell their own produce on the street. But from last year to this year, it has become extremely strict—street selling is forbidden, and we’re told it doesn’t meet urban hygiene standards. When farmers have no opportunity to sell their own products, they are left to toil in the fields only to sell to middlemen. They have to accept whatever price the traders offer; the farmers have no autonomy at all.
IV. Farmers building their own factories
Is contract processing viable?Once the new administrative regulations are implemented, the processing of various “dried goods” can only be carried out by enterprises with a food production licence. Can farmers obtain a production licence themselves, or find a suitable contract factory? Among the farming friends we know, many belong to family farms or cooperatives—the group of Chinese farmers with the most resources and capability. Even they report that, based on current requirements, building their own factory is unfeasible, while coordinating with contract factories presents various hurdles: costs are too high, distances are too great, and volumes are too small for anyone to accept the order.
A young person running a family farm in Guangxi: There aren’t many factories in our local area, so they’re hard to find. For one thing, you don’t even know them! Factories have their own production to handle, and many make money through volume with thin profit margins. Consequently, they simply haven’t the time to deal with you.
Otherwise, you have factories that specialise in contract processing, but their fees are truly steep. For example, last year I sent dried rose petals to a factory to be processed into rose essence paste. Six *jin* of dried roses resulted in less than 30 grams of essence paste, and they charged me 600 yuan.
A leader of a farming cooperative in Yunnan: If we were to build our own factories, the costs would be too high. If we use contract manufacturing, we can’t even find processing plants for some products locally, and the transport costs to and from other regions are too expensive. If you can’t reach a certain production volume, no factory is willing to help you. But if you do reach that volume, there is no guarantee you can actually sell the produce. Take walnuts, for example; although we have a huge local output, there are almost no facilities nearby with an SC (Food Production Licence). The one or two that do exist aren’t necessarily willing to let us use them.
For wild mushrooms, some can be processed locally, but for others—such as dried boletus slices—you have to go to Kunming. A single round trip costs nearly 1,000 yuan in transport alone, and that’s before you even account for the processing costs, which I haven’t discussed in detail.
Most dried goods are normally dried by the farmers themselves and then bought up by traders. Take beans, for instance; farmers can dry them on their own. If they are forced to have a dedicated factory building, the costs would skyrocket.
Except for things like mushrooms, it’s only been in the last ten years or so that people have wanted to collect and process goods collectively to improve their appearance and quality. In recent years, we have also been bringing everyone’s fresh mushrooms back to the cooperative for unified management and drying. In terms of saving labour costs, farmers are happy to save themselves the trouble. What farmers care about most is which method allows them to increase their income slightly.
A reader from the Northeast: My parents are planning to sell some of the agricultural produce they grow at home. After consulting the Market Supervision Administration, they found they need to arrange several things. Yesterday, they obtained a business licence, but they still need a small-scale workshop production permit, a food production licence, and a food business licence. For many farmers, obtaining these licences is incredibly difficult. The dried goods farmers make are basically just seasonal vegetables and fruits from their own gardens; they only dry them to sell because they have more than they can eat, not because they intend to make a business of it. Requiring them to obtain all these qualifications just to sell a small amount of dried produce is simply asking the impossible.
A farming friend from Sichuan and another from the home of Hangzhou White Chrysanthemum joking with each other: “So, dried chillies are finally being treated the same as Hangzhou White Chrysanthemum.”
“Is this the start of dried chillies reaching the same price point as White Chrysanthemum?”
V. What happens next?
Faced with these regulatory amendments, how should we act? Before the regulations are finalised, there is still time. Foodthink intends to continue gathering views from all parties and will submit a set of proposed amendments to the State Administration for Market Regulation before the consultation deadline this Sunday. If you have any thoughts on the revisions, please leave a comment. If you would like to submit your own opinion, need support, or wish to join us in speaking out, please add Foodthink’s personal WeChat: foodthinkcn, or scan the QR code below. Please include the note “Agricultural Products” and a brief introduction of yourself, and we will invite you to join the discussion group.
For specific details regarding the revisions to the “Measures for the Supervision and Administration of the Quality and Safety of Edible Agricultural Products Market Sales”, and how to submit your feedback, please refer to our previous article or click here to view the information directly on the Ministry of Justice website.
